3rd Regional Conference - DECENT WORK FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS

In this resolution, the 3rd ITUC Asia Pacific Conference welcomes with particular interest legislative and policy reforms at the national level, including in several countries in the region, to recognise the rights of domestic workers. They range from a comprehensive law or new labour laws with provisions on domestic workers, extension of wages, social insurance, and protection from sexual harassment to domestic workers, guaranteed weekly day of rest, etc.

These developments are important, but as the region accounts for the biggest share of the world’s domestic workers, these barely address the innate vulnerability and the effective exclusion of domestic workers from protection of national laws and regulations. With ratification of the ILO C 189 by governments and country-level legislation painfully slow, with the Philippines still the only country in the region to ratify the convention, decent work for domestic workers remains elusive.

The Conference agrees to intensify work to build awareness, push for further protection, supporting ratification by more countries and national level application, and empowerment of domestic workers.